The transition however from the rich to the barren, from the picturesque to the contrary, was instantaneous.

From the grassy woodland we had been riding through, we debouched upon a barren plain without any vegetation, and after crossing a small channel, intersected a second much larger, a little beyond it.

Both creeks evidently traversed different parts of a large plain to the north, to which they had no apparent inlet.
There was a long tongue of sand, rather elevated, and running up into the plain, to the termination of which we rode, and then found ourselves, as it were, in the centre of an area, that was of great extent, and appeared to be bounded on all sides, excepting that by which we had entered, by sand hills.

Unconnected lines of trees marked the courses of the channels traversing it in different directions, but as the evening had far advanced, and my object had been rather to look round about me than to make any lengthened excursion, we returned to our little bivouac, with the intention of devoting another day to the fuller examination of the neighbourhood.
On the following day I proceeded with the whole party to the westward, anticipating that the salt formation existing to the north-west was merely local, and that by thus turning a few degrees from the course on which we had before gone, we should altogether avoid it.

I should not, however, have taken Joseph and Lewis with the cart, if I had not been somewhat apprehensive that the natives might visit the camp during my absence, and some misunderstanding be the consequence; for as we had hitherto found the country to the westward worse than at any other point, I was after all doubtful how far I should be able to push on.
We left the creek on a W.by N.course, the direction of the sandy ridges being to the N.N.W., so that we were obliged to cross them successively.
I soon found that the country was infinitely worse than I expected.